1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrical musical instrument, particularly to an electric piano provided with an improved tone generator.
2. Description of Prior Art
Generally, an electric piano comprises a series of keys, hammers swung by depression of the keys through an action mechanism, resonators to vibrate with their natural frequencies when hit by the hammers, pickups to pick up electromagnetically the frequencies of the resonators, and a loudspeaker to output the frequencies picked up by the pickups and thereafter amplified by an amplifier.
The resonators used in the conventional electric pianos are fork-shaped, or have a modified fork shape as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,972,922 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,644,656. Or they comprise cantilevered tabular reeds, as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,934,988. The musical tones produced by such conventional electric pianos, however, are not at all satisfactory, because they are very simple and monotonous. They are especially deficient in solidness and percussiveness. Further, any of the prior art resonator of an electric piano has not satisfied, for example, the following requirements demanded thereof: it is prominently durable, facilitates tuning, saves tuning from derangement over a long period, attains the easy adjustment of overtones, provides suitable growth and decay characteristics and is readily attached to or detached from the mount for retuning or the exchange of the resonator.
The conventional electric piano has still a further defect in that the produced sound contains undesirable noise inevitably because the pickups fixed directly onto the mount pick up unnecessary vibration outside the piano via the mount or unnecessary vibration of the mount caused by the reeds.